Gracie - Sherry Foster Page 0,4
hesitate to kill his own partner for the good of the shifters. His desire shifted between hoping everything he was living was a drug induced coma and praying he was living his new reality. Alone, with only his thoughts to keep him company, he bounced between abject terror of his new reality and awe of his experiences and the possibilities open to him.
Hendrix seemed different now than how Jeffery remembered him. Colder if that was possible. He didn’t know if the news he had shared with the shifter had made the difference or if something had happened. As far as he could figure out, from reading up on the mission, nothing out of the ordinary for their line of work had happened on this particular mission. The mission was fairly simply compared to past missions. They had a lead they were following but it looked like the person of interest in this particular case was not going to be a problem. He looked, on the surface, like he was running a trafficking operation but upon further investigation the alleged trafficking was turning out to be honest apprenticeship programs. Sometimes it was difficult to tell the difference. Although the man, Johanas, did take children and sell them, it wasn’t as cut and dried as it had at first seemed.
The investigation had turned up payments to families, poor families who couldn’t pay for food for the amount of children they had. The children were then taken and sold to others. But it wasn’t so simple as slave trafficking. This case had shades of gray in it. The families were paid, that was true. Johanas was a middle man for the families. He did sell the children to others. But that is where the appearance of slavery ended. The children were contracted as apprentices and the man who sold them kept up with how they were doing and sent pictures of the children back to their families. The investigation had turned up bank accounts set up for the children where money was deposited on a regular basis. It was confusing, confounding, and didn’t at all fit the parameters they needed to destroy a slavery ring. Another week and a few more steps in the investigation would see them close the case. They needed only to find one child who had reached their majority and determine if the child had been set free with the bank account intact.
Hendrix reasoned, and Jeffery agreed, if someone wanted to look honest they could set the system up so if someone like themselves came snooping it would appear the man, Johanas, was doing something good for the poor families. But, if those children were not freed, and disappeared instead, and the money in the bank accounts reverted to Johanas, well, that was a problem.
Jeffery looked at the clock on the wall before turning toward Hendrix’s door. The man didn’t keep to a set schedule when it came to letting his wolf out. Apparently once a month was sufficient at the moment to keep the wolf from going crazy and decrease the chances of being caught. But with Jeffery already knowing the secret, and the house being some distance from anyone and bordering a small forest, Hendrix was letting the wolf roam a bit more frequently. Jeffery couldn’t tell that doing so improved his partner’s mood any but what did he know about shifters or drug induced coma dreams when it came right down to it.
He did know that Hendrix’s mood improved or deteriorated when his burner phone went off. And it went off on a regular basis. So the mood shifts could not be anticipated. He wished he knew who was texting the shifter. The phone was another reason he was leaning more and more toward drug induced coma over reality. No one on the team kept a phone on during a mission. It wasn’t done. Even burner phones were rarely used. Hendrix was breaking so many rules with the phone. But on the small chance this was his new reality and shifters really did exist and he truly did live with an unstable shifter, he was not about to mention the rule breaking and end up as his partner’s dinner.
Looking back at the clock Jeffery almost missed the door opening. Jerking his head around he looked at Hendrix. Wearily lifting his hand up he rubbed his forehead. He could not get used to the man walking out in boxers to shift to his wolf. If boxers shifted